Different Biases in Decision-Making
Bias is one of the main issues that affect decision-making in personal life and business contexts. Unfortunately, it is hard to avoid bias in making decisions because of the reliance on heuristics to reduce the demands of processing information in decision-making. Heuristics play a significant role in decision-making by reducing the information pieces being processed, simplifying the magnitude of information, and considering a limited number of alternatives in decision-making. The inappropriate application of heuristics creates bias, hence making it hard to avoid systematically biased decisions. It is therefore important to understand the three general heuristics that may affect decision-making and strategies that can be used to overcome bias and improve decision-making. Our assignment writing help is at affordable prices to students of all academic levels and academic disciplines.
The Availability Heuristic, The Representativeness Heuristic, And The Confirmation Heuristic
The three general heuristics are the availability heuristic, the representativeness heuristic, and the confirmation heuristic. According to Bazerman & Moore (2012), the availability heuristic is the insinuations people make about an event’s commonness based on the ease with which the individual can remember the instances of that event. This heuristic often yields reasonable results when an individual’s memory of the observed events corresponds well with the actual turn of events. It considers readily available information such as recently memorized information, something that strongly affected an individual or had a significant impact on them, and events that occurred in an individual’s memory recently (Beaudrie et al., 2016).
The representativeness heuristic includes approximating the possibility of an event by likening it to an existing prototype in mind. The prototype is what the individual thinks is the most typical or relevant example of a specific object or event (Stolwijk, 2019). The main factors considered in the use of this heuristic are conserving limited cognitive resources, overestimating the significance of similarity, and using prototypes and categories to make decisions. The confirmation heuristic refers to the propensity to look for information that supports a person’s perceptions by inferring evidence to confirm current beliefs while overlooking or discarding any conflicting information (Tryon, 2014). This heuristic is applied unintentionally and usually results in ignoring information that may be considered inconsistent. Existing beliefs may include a person’s anticipations in a specific situation and forecasts on a specific outcome.
Representativeness Heuristic Scenario
Settling for the organization where I would complete my internship was the most challenging decision for me. I had initially applied for an internship in an organization that I thought would be the best place to develop my skills because it was one of the organizations recommended by our instructor, but things did not turn out as I expected. During the first week, I realized that other employees were not friendly to interns, and we were usually assigned boring tasks that required us to spend a lot of time in the office to complete them within the deadline set by our supervisors. After working for one week, I realized that the workplace was toxic, and I quit. I applied for an internship position in different organizations online, and I finally got an offer from another organization.
I decided to first go through the organization’s employees’ reviews online to prepare myself for the work environment I would be joining. Most of the employees stated that the work environment was busy, and they were required to work with specific deadlines. Some employees had complained about working overtime to meet deadlines but acknowledged that the company always paid overtime salaries without any trouble. I decided not to accept the job offer because of the similarity between the organization’s tasks and work environment and those I had recently quit the organization. The availability heuristic influenced my decision, and I had to review other job offers before I finally found the ideal workplace. My decision not to accept the job offer was also affected by the representativeness bias because I compared the two work environments based on the description of the tasks that I would be completing, employee reviews, and what I had experienced in my previous job. I mainly focused on the reviews on overtime work and the busy work environment and assumed that I would feel overworked as I felt in my previous work environment.
The bias could have been overcome by talking to someone who has worked in the organization before or is currently working in the organization. I could have done this by messaging some of the employees who had posted their reviews online. I could also have overcome this bias by accepting the job offer and getting my own experience instead of relying on the reviews of other employees because they could have been biased based on job satisfaction and relationships with other employees. I could have also researched the company to understand how it treats its employees based on its values, mission, vision, and goals.
Conclusion
Heuristics shape the way individuals process and break down the information required to make a decision. While some heuristics, such as availability and representativeness heuristic, may occur intentionally, confirmation heuristic usually occurs unintentionally. Therefore, individuals need to distinguish between their thoughts and beliefs and the decision at hand to avoid making biased judgments. This can be achieved by avoiding any thoughts that may create bias and focusing on facts rather than assumptions when making decisions.
References
Bazerman, M. H., & Moore, D. A. (2012). Judgment in managerial decision making. John Wiley & Sons.
Beaudrie, C. E., Kandlikar, M., & Ramachandran, G. (2016). Using expert judgment for risk assessment. Assessing Nanoparticle Risks to Human Health, 91-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-323-35323-6.00005-0
Cohen, M. (2019). The availability of heuristic, political leaders, and decision-making skills. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1028
Stolwijk, S. (2019). The representativeness heuristic in political decision-making. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.981
Tryon, W. W. (2014). Psychotherapy integration. Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychotherapy, 369-396. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-420071-5.00008-9
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Question 
Different Biases in Decision-Making
In this unit, you learned about the different biases in decision-making. For this assignment, you will compose an essay that examines these biases. In your essay, briefly describe each of the three general heuristics covered in Chapter 3 of the textbook. Then, pick one or more of the three heuristics and describe an original decision-making scenario that conveys how the heuristic and associated bias(es) played a part in the outcome. Explain how the biases could have been overcome to improve the decision.
This scenario can be real or imagined, and it can be about personal or business decision-making events. You should not use the scenarios or examples given in the textbook. Be sure to use what you have learned about the heuristics and biases to create your scenario.
In your essay, include both an introductory paragraph with a topic sentence and a conclusion. Your essay must be a minimum of three pages in length, and it must include at least two references, one of which must be the textbook and one of which must be another academic source. Any information from a source must be cited and referenced in APA format.
The Book is Judgment in Managerial Decision Making. Max H. Bozeman & Don A. Moore